


An Itch That Never Goes Away

by poisonapplecat



Category: Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drabble, Other Characters Are Mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 10:52:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16217534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonapplecat/pseuds/poisonapplecat
Summary: A look at Light Yagami through the lens of unrelenting, irritating, maddening perfection.





	An Itch That Never Goes Away

**Author's Note:**

> NOT a defense of Light Yagami despite the wording. Don't get mistaken, he's evil --I love him and all but holy shit.
> 
> Just a dive into HIS mind, inside of which he's excused himself from culpability.

 

 There was always an itch in the back of Light’s mind.

 

 Ever since he could remember, he’d been more clever than other kids his age. He didn’t truly understand it at first, the fact that it was him who was smarter and not everyone else who was dumber. In a way, he still doesn’t fully understand it, especially since relativity is so vague in matters like this, but it’d been far more confusing when he was younger.

 

 He didn’t really _get it_ . He was smart, _sure_ , but why wasn’t everyone else? Why did others struggle to understand concepts he perfected in no time flat?

 

 For a while, he felt isolated. A few times, even, he considered pretending to be dumber so that he could appear normal. That alien element of his own intelligence scared even him.

 

 He’d tried. A total of one time. He purposefully chose wrong answers on a test. He got a C.

 

 But by that time, his parents had become so proud of their “clever little boy.”

 

 By that time, they’d expected better.

 

 The flash of disappointment in his father’s eyes was enough to sell himself on perfection. It was enough for him to disregard even his own sense of community.

 

 That was when the itch had started.

 

 It was persistent and never seemed to go away, following him like a curse.

 

 Some days he’d try to ignore it. Other days, he chose to appease it. Every time he brought home a good test score or was able to brag about his achievements to his mother, the itch lessened.

 

 But it never went away.

 

 His achievements piled up. Popular among peers. Tennis champion. Japan’s best and brightest. Helped solve two cases for the NPA.

 

 Each time, the itch would lessen for a while but it would never go away. Not truly.

 

 And when it came back, it always came back worse.

 

 Light began to get desperate. He couldn’t fathom how nothing he’d done had made him perfect. Everyone knew him as perfect. His _parents_ , the only people he really cared about proving his perfection to, _they_ believed it.

 

 So what was missing?

 

 He began to ponder.

 

 He’d been doing a lot for him but not really enough for others lately. Maybe being a more well-rounded citizen would help defeat the itch. It wasn’t as though the world couldn’t use some cleaning up.

 

 Come to think of it, his parents had been their proudest of him when he showed the full extent of his genius while helping with cases. It had also been the achievement that had lessened the itch the most. Maybe doing more in the field of law enforcement would help.

 

 Well, it was already his plan to become a detective, wasn’t it? But the ambition was still too far stretched out. He was still in high school! Just the thought of waiting that long to prove himself made the itch increase tenfold.

 

 There was no way he could wait that long.

 

 Maybe if he had waited, though, he would’ve had time to ponder more deeply. Maybe he would’ve realized that the cause of the itch wasn’t a warning of imperfection but a flawed approach.

 

 Maybe, given time, Light Yagami could have realized perfection was the problem.

 

 But he _was_ still in high school. He was still _young_. And even his own genius had become compromised by an ever-persistent itch.

 

 Who could blame him when a little, black notebook finally gave him the opportunity to scratch?

 

 Who could blame him for choosing to realize his perfection on the grandest level he could imagine?

 

 Who could blame him for ignoring the moments when, every now and then, the itch came back as he stared into the deep, black eyes of the world’s “greatest” detective? For shoving it out of his mind every time his father denounced Kira’s tactics? For blinding himself to the sensation whenever Ryuk made some off-hand comment meant to throw him off?

 

 Who could blame him when the laughter that bubbled out of his throat was better than any love confession, any tennis match, any test score, any police case?

 

 Who could blame him but the itch he’d murdered alongside so many others?

**Author's Note:**

> Kinda wish I'd made the word count 666 cause I'm only 33 off but 699 is acceptable for... reasons.
> 
> (I have the humor of a twelve-year-old, shhhhhhh)
> 
> Anyway, thanks for reading! Tbh the story's a bit light -- no pun intended -- for my usual length preferences but in this case, conciseness seems acceptable.
> 
> (Also this is not meant to imply that every perfectionist is on the same level as Light-"yeah, I'd burn my house down to stop my little sister from touching my magic notebook"-Yagami. Just wanted to explore the broken glass canvas that is the mind of Light Yagami with some rather more extreme variations of the own little annoyances I experience when it comes to perfection.)


End file.
